City's governance agenda: ‘Urban planning falls under local govt - not in Karachi’

Farhan Anwar talks about how local govt has never been empowered

KARACHI: It is universally accepted that urban planning falls under the jurisdiction and mandate of the local government - not so for Karachi

Urban planner and Shehri - Citizens for a Better Environment (CBE) member Farhan Anwar said this at a stakeholder workshop, titled 'Defining a Good Local Governance Agenda for Karachi'. The workshop was organised by Shehri-CBE in collaboration with German foundation for liberal politics, Friedrich Naumann Stiftung fur die Freiheit, on Friday.

According to Anwar, the governance construct that includes local, provincial and federal governments is dysfunctional. The local government, he said, is sometimes controlled by the federal and sometimes by the provincial government. "Local government in all such tiers has been most affected and never empowered," he said.

Anwar said that many of the local government functions are performed at the behest of the provincial government. "There is little autonomy [for] the local governments," he said, adding that this dependence moves towards the federal government if there is army rule.



Talking about the challenges to viable local governance in Karachi, Anwar said that Karachi is not the city it was planned as. According to him, most of the planning documents and proposals for the city never saw the light of the day. From 'Greater Karachi Plan-1952' to the 'Karachi Strategic Development Plan-2020', nothing was actually done on ground, he said.

He was of the view that the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) should have been further decentralised from the local government to the community level but the Sindh government took control over it.

"Urban planning is now under the Sindh Building Control Authority, which is also unheard of," he said, adding that even the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board's policy mandate is under the Sindh government.

According to him, the council of the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) is supposed to be an elected body as per the Sindh Local Government Ordinance provisions. However, he said, the planning and implementation agency for Karachi's development was Karachi Development Authority (KDA), which was a parallel agency run by technocrats and was in no way accountable to the KMC and, hence, to the people.

Shehri - CBE member Sameer Hamid Dodhy said that Pakistan is a funny place. Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was given a free pass during former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf's regime, he said. "They were all-powerful, with no checks and balances," he said, pointing out that the story is different now. According to him, it is the responsibility of the citizens to keep checks and balances on their elected representatives and to make them realise that they will not vote for them if they violate laws and do not work for the betterment of the citizens.

Dodhy said that there is a law that gives all citizens access to information. However, that law is very weak in Sindh, he pointed out. The law gives the right to every citizen to inquire how much elected representatives have spent on a particular project. Dodhy pointed out that the provincial government does not involve the inhabitants of the city in their projects. "Input from citizens has to be taken in all projects, small or mega," he said.

Powerless elected chairpersons

The Sindh Local Government Act, 2013, is the height of injustice, claimed Jamaat-e-Islami councillor Junaid Mukati. "We don't have powers," he said. "I cannot even place gutter caps or change a secretary, clerk or sweeper in my union committee (UC)." He added that the city's garbage will be lifted by the provincial assembly, whose mandate is to do legislation.

"It is indeed difficult to approach a bureaucrat but not an elected representative of the local government," said MQM's elected chairperson from District East UC-22, Abdul Salam Khan

Sindh's local government minister has been elected from Ghotki while the transport minister has been elected from Jacobabad but they are handling Karachi, lamented MQM's elected chairperson from UC-25, Syed Farhan Ali.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 5^th, 2016.